Last year wasn't great for investors in hedge funds: On average, hedge funds returned a paltry 3 percent, versus a gain of 13.68 percent on the S&P 500 (with reinvested dividends included), The New York Times reports. Only five of the top 10 hedge fund managers, as ranked by Institutional Investor's Alpha, performed better than the S&P 500. But even though the well-heeled and institutional investors in hedge funds got hosed, The Times notes, "for those who managed their money, the pay was spectacular": $11.62 billion for the top 25 managers.
Or as Alpha puts it, they made "a paltry $11.62 billion combined, barely half of the $21.15 billion the top 25 gained the previous year and roughly equal to what they took home during nightmarish 2008." Citadel's Kenneth Griffin (pictured) was the top earner, at $1.3 billion last year, but the average earning was "just $476 million," not the $846 billion in 2013, Alpha added. And you may now take out your tiny violins.
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